In the study, which was conducted by researchers from the University of Gothenburg, Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the participants completed a scientifically evaluated questionnaire about what they had been eating and drinking since becoming pregnant.The researchers also had access to information about the women’s general lifestyle e.g. level of education, living conditions, income, weight, physical activity, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, number of children and medical factors such as history of preterm delivery.15% lower riskThe results show that the group of women with the ‘healthiest’ pregnancy diet had a roughly 15% lower risk of preterm delivery compared with those with the most unhealthy diet. The correlation remained after controlling for ten other known risk factors for preterm delivery.’Pregnant women have many reasons to choose a healthy diet with lots of vegetables, fruit, whole grain products and some types of fish, but this is the first time we can statistically link healthy eating habits to reduced risk of preterm delivery,’ says Linda Englund-gge, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.Associated with complicationsPreterm delivery, defined as spontaneous or induced delivery before the end of gestational week 37, can be associated with acute and long-term complications and is a major problem in modern maternity care. Measures to prevent preterm delivery are therefore of high priority.Should this lead to revised dietary recommendations for pregnant women?’No, and it is not harmful to occasionally eat something unhealthy. But our study shows that the dietary recommendations given to pregnant women are important,’ says Englund-gge:’Dietary studies can be very complex. Any given food item may contain a wide range of substances and is usually consumed together with other foods. This makes it difficult to find out its exact effects of one single food. We show that there is a statistically established link between a healthy diet and reduced risk of preterm delivery, but our study wasn’t designed to identify any underlying mechanisms.Encourage healthy eating habitsEnglund-gge says that studies of the overall dietary pattern and the total quality of the foods consumed are important complements to coming studies of how single food items affect the risk of preterm delivery. The researchers are hoping that the study will inspire doctors, midwives and others who work with pregnant women to encourage healthy eating habits.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by University of Gothenburg. The original article was written by Krister Svahn. …

Will a multi-generational exposure to a western type diet increase offspring’s chance of developing colon cancer? Will cancer-fighting agents, like green tea, help combat that increased risk?Those are the two questions Abby Benninghoff, an assistant professor in Utah State University’s College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences, will attempt to answer thanks to a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”Simply put, if your grandmother ate a poor diet, will green tea be beneficial for you or not,” Benninghoff said.Benninghoff and her two collaborators, Korry Hintze and Robert Ward, both associate professors of nutrition, dietetics and food sciences, have developed a diet that mimics typical U.S. nutrition for studies of human cancer using animal models. In this case, rodents with cancer will be studied, which will allow Benninghoff to look at the effects of the diet on multiple generations in a short period of time.Benninghoff, predicts that green tea will have a greater benefit to those mice that are exposed to the western diet than those on a healthy diet. She also believes that the more generations exposed to the western diet, the greater the risk of colon cancer in the offspring.”In the end, what we’re hoping is to be able to determine if there are certain populations that would benefit from a diet modification, an increase consumption of green tea,” Benninghoff said. She also hopes the consequences of this diet will be better understood for the benefit of future generations.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Utah State University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

A study published in The American Journal of Medicine reveals that a whole diet approach, which focuses on increased intake of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and fish, has more evidence for reducing cardiovascular risk than strategies that focus exclusively on reduced dietary fat.This new study explains that while strictly low-fat diets have the ability to lower cholesterol, they are not as conclusive in reducing cardiac deaths. By analyzing major diet and heart disease studies conducted over the last several decades, investigators found that participants directed to adopt a whole diet approach instead of limiting fat intake had a greater reduction in cardiovascular death and non-fatal myocardial infarction.Early investigations of the relationship between food and heart disease linked high levels of serum cholesterol to increased intake of saturated fat, and subsequently, an increased rate of coronary heart disease. This led to the American Heart Association’s recommendation to limit fat intake to less than 30% of daily calories, saturated fat to 10%, and cholesterol to less than 300 mg per day.”Nearly all clinical trials in the 1960s, 70s and 80s compared usual diets to those characterized by low total fat, low saturated fat, low dietary cholesterol, and increased polyunsaturated fats,” says study co-author James E. Dalen, MD, MPH, Weil Foundation, and University of Arizona College of Medicine. “These diets did reduce cholesterol levels. However they did not reduce the incidence of myocardial infarction or coronary heart disease deaths.”Carefully analyzing studies and trials from 1957 to the present, investigators found that the whole diet approach, and specifically Mediterranean-style diets, are effective in preventing heart disease, even though they may not lower total serum or LDL cholesterol. The Mediterranean-style diet is low in animal products and saturated fat, and encourages intake of monounsaturated fats found in nuts and olive oil. In particular, the diet emphasizes consumption of vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, and fish.”The potency of combining individual cardioprotective foods is substantial — and perhaps even stronger than many of the medications and procedures that have been the focus of modern cardiology,” explains co-author Stephen Devries, MD, FACC, Gaples Institute for Integrative Cardiology (Deerfield, IL) and Division of Cardiology, Northwestern University (Chicago, IL). “Results from trials emphasizing dietary fat reduction were a disappointment, prompting subsequent studies incorporating a whole diet approach with a more nuanced recommendation for fat intake.”Based on the data from several influential studies, which are reviewed in the article, Dalen and Devries concluded that emphasizing certain food groups, while encouraging people to decrease others, is more cardioprotective and overall better at preventing heart disease than a blanket low-fat diet. Encouraging the consumption of olive oil over butter and cream, while increasing the amount of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and fish promises to be more effective.”The last fifty years of epidemiology and clinical trials have established a clear link between diet, atherosclerosis, and cardiovascular events,” concludes Dr. …

Veggies burgers were one of the first recipes I developed after deciding to cut way back on meat consumption about a year and a half ago.I’m not a fan of store bought veggie patties for the following reasons:They try to mimic meat. They are usually soy based or wheat gluten based and highly processed They are EXPENSIVE! So, I developed this recipe by adapting a veggie burger recipe my friend gave me. I tweaked it for better flavor and higher nutrition.After you make and try these veggie burgers, you’ll never want to purchase those store bought varieties ever again.Plus! These veggie burgers are inexpensive to make and are packed with solid nutrition.Here is What You’ll Need2 cups (uncooked) green lentils 2 carrots 1/2 a …

Oct. 17, 2013 — In recent years, studies have reported inconsistent findings regarding whether calcium supplements used to prevent fractures increase the risk of heart attack.Now, in an assessment of the scientific literature, reported as a perspective piece in the October 17, 2013 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a UC San Francisco researcher says patients and health care practitioners should focus on getting calcium from the diet, rather than supplements, when possible.”Osteoporosis may result from inadequate calcium intake and it’s quite common for certain segments of our population, such as the elderly, to consume less than the recommend amount,” said Douglas C. Bauer, MD, UCSF professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics. “But a high calcium diet should be the preferred method to receive adequate amounts of the nutrient. The Institute of Medicine’s recommended dosage for post-menopausal women over the age of 50 and men over 70 is 1,200 mg per day.”If it is not possible to consume enough calcium from the diet, the use of calcium supplements is most likely safe and not associated with cardiovascular outcomes,” he said.Calcium supplements are known to have several side effects, the most common being indigestion and minor constipation, and kidney stones are a rare complication. However, several recent studies have suggested that calcium supplements can also lead to an increase risk of heart attacks.A 2010 British Medical Journal study, which pooled nearly a dozen randomized trials, concluded that calcium supplements “are associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction [heart attacks]” and went on to say, ” As calcium supplements are widely used, these modest increases in risk of cardiovascular disease might translate into a large burden of disease in the population.”A 2013 JAMA Internal Medicine non-randomized study examined 11,778 cardiovascular-related deaths and found an increased risk with calcium supplement use. The authors concluded, “high intake of supplemental calcium is associated with an excess risk of CVD (cardiovascular disease) death in men but not in women.”However, several other studies have shown no relationship between the use of calcium supplements and cardiovascular events.For example, a 2010 meta-analysis that included all of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial participants showed “no significant relationship between supplementation and cardiovascular events” in three trials of calcium supplements alone.Bauer recommends consuming dairy products to increase one’s dietary intake of calcium as well as food products that are fortified with extra calcium, such as kale, broccoli and Bok Choy.

There have been some few patients who have survived far beyond the usual one year prognosis for most mesothelioma victims and a handful that have even been cured, with no trace of the aggressive cancer several years after treatment (though recurrence is always possible).Many medical experts are baffled by this observation and for most of the time they are yet to find a real scientific basis to explain why some mesothelioma patients survive and others do not.There seems to be one common factor amongst those that have survived the disease for longer times – the immune system. Studies of those who have either survived or been cured of the disease reveal that most of these patients participated in some sort of therapy that enhanced their immune …

Aug. 6, 2013 — For the first time scientists have been able to develop a completely vegetarian diet that works for marine fish raised in aquaculture, the key to making aquaculture a sustainable industry as the world’s need for protein increases. The findings led by Aaron Watson and Allen Place at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Institute for Marine and Environmental Technology, are published in the August issue of the journal Lipids.”Aquaculture cannot sustainably grow and expand to meet growing global population and protein demand without developing and evaluating alternative ingredients to reduce fishmeal and fish oil use,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Aaron Watson.Supported by another paper published in the Journal of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the team has proven that a completely plant-based food combination can support fast-growing marine carnivores like cobia and gilthead sea bream in reaching maturity just as well as — and sometimes better than — conventional diets of fish meal and fish oil made from wild-caught fish.Nearly half of the world’s fish and shellfish supply is supplied by aquaculture — growing fish in tanks or ponds instead of catching them from the oceans or streams — and scientists have been trying to figure out how to make growing fish sustainable. Many high-value fish such as cobia, sea bream, and striped bass are predators and eat other fish to survive and grow. As a result, their food in captivity is made of a combination of fishmeal and fish oil, and must be caught from the wild to feed them. This is expensive (for example, it can take 5 pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of fish), and it further depletes the world’s fisheries.”This makes aquaculture completely sustainable,” said Dr. Allen Place. “The pressure on natural fisheries in terms of food fish can be relieved. We can now sustain a good protein source without harvesting fish to feed fish.”The replacement of fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture diets has been a goal for researchers for decades but has met with limited success. …

Aug. 14, 2013 — For a new study in the Journal of Animal Science, researchers evaluated how different levels of selenium affect the immune system of adult horses. According to the researchers, the effects of selenium supplementation on the immune system have been evaluated in other species but not extensively in horses.Dr. Laurie Lawrence, animal science professor at the University of Kentucky, said the amount of selenium in soil and forages varies across the United States. She said that they wanted to know whether horses grazing pasture that was marginal in selenium would react differently to vaccines, compared with horses that were supplemented with additional dietary selenium.Mieke Brummer, PhD student working with the University of Kentucky and Alltech, said she was interested in the effects of selenium on the immune system, specifically the cell-mediated component of the immune system. The cell-mediated component is responsible for the activation of immune cells. These immune cells can directly attack foreign antigens.In this experiment, twenty-eight adult horses were divided by age and sex. The horses were then randomly assigned to a dietary selenium treatment. Brummer said the first phase lasted 35-weeks. During the first phase, the researchers were aiming to deplete the selenium in the horses that were assigned to the low diet.In the next 29-weeks, some the horses that were assigned to low treatments were given additional dietary selenium supplements. …

Sep. 3, 2013 — The first systematic review of related research confirms a positive impact on cognitive function, but an inconsistent effect on mild cognitive impairment.Over recent years many pieces of research have identified a link between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and a lower risk of age-related disease such as dementia.Until now there has been no systematic review of such research, where a number of studies regarding a Mediterranean diet and cognitive function are reviewed for consistencies, common trends and inconsistencies.A team of researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School, supported by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care in the South West Peninsula (NIHR PenCLAHRC), has carried out the first such systematic review and their findings are published in Epidemiology.The team analysed 12 eligible pieces of research, 11 observational studies and one randomised control trial. In nine out of the 12 studies, a higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with better cognitive function, lower rates of cognitive decline and a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.However, results for mild cognitive impairment were inconsistent.A Mediterranean diet typically consists of higher levels of olive oil, vegetables, fruit and fish. A higher adherence to the diet means higher daily intakes of fruit and vegetables and fish, and reduced intakes of meat and dairy products.The study was led by researcher Iliana Lourida. She said: “Mediterranean food is both delicious and nutritious, and our systematic review shows it may help to protect the ageing brain by reducing the risk of dementia. While the link between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and dementia risk is not new, ours is the first study to systematically analyse all existing evidence.”She added: “Our review also highlights inconsistencies in the literature and the need for further research. In particular research is needed to clarify the association with mild cognitive impairment and vascular dementia. It is also important to note that while observational studies provide suggestive evidence we now need randomized controlled trials to confirm whether or not adherence to a Mediterranean diet protects against dementia.”

Aug. 29, 2013 — It’s a fiercely debated question amongst palaeontologists: was the giant ‘terror bird’, which lived in Europe between 55 to 40 million years ago, really a terrifying predator or just a gentle herbivore?New research presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Florence today (Thursday 29th August) may finally provide an answer. A team of German researchers has studied fossilised remains of terror birds from a former open-cast brown coal mine in the Geiseltal (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and their findings indicate the creature was most likely not a meat eater.The terror bird — also known as Gastornis — was a flightless bird up to two metres in height with an enormous, ferocious beak. Based upon its size and ominous appearance, scientists have long assumed that it was a ruthless carnivore.”The terror bird was thought to have used its huge beak to grab and break the neck of its prey, which is supported by biomechanical modelling of its bite force,” says Dr Thomas Tütken, from the University of Bonn. “It lived after the dinosaurs became extinct and at a time when mammals were at an early stage of evolution and relatively small; thus, the terror bird was though to have been a top predator at that time on land.”Recent research has cast some doubt on its diet, however. Palaeontologists in the United States found footprints believed to belong to the American cousin of Gastornis, and these do not show the imprints of sharp claws, used to grapple prey, that might be expected of a raptor. Also, the bird’s sheer size and inability to move fast has made some believe it couldn’t have predated on early mammals — though others claim it might have ambushed them. But, without conclusive findings either way, the dietary inclinations of Gastornis remain a mystery.Dr Tütken and his colleagues Dr Meinolf Hellmund, Dr Stephen Galer and Petra Held have taken a new geochemical approach to determine the diet of Gastornis. By analysing the calcium isotope composition in fossilised bones, they have been able to identify what proportion of a creature’s diet was plant or animal and, on that basis, their position in the food chain of the local ecosystem. This depends on the calcium isotopic composition becoming “lighter” as it passes through the food chain. …

Aug. 16, 2013 — In drought periods browsing springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) feed on all plant material they can find, while grazing gemsbok (Oryx gazella gazella), in contrast, switch their diet to a high proportion of poisonous plants — and they survive. These findings were just published in the scientific online journal PLOS ONE.Share This:”We wanted to understand how these quite well-studied ungulates with contrasting feeding strategies can survive and even flourish in an adverse habitat like the Kunene region in Namibia, where the environment is characterised by strong and unpredictable variation in resource availability,” says David Lehmann, doctoral candidate at the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and first author of the study. Researchers from theIZW, the University of Namibia and other Namibian partners found that gemsbok (also called oryx) adjusted its diet according to season. During drought periods, they fed on a restricted mixture of plants, including more than 30 % of shrubs and trees. Surprisingly, gemsbok diet also consisted of up to 25 % of Damara milk-bush (Euphorbia damarana), an endemic, large succulent plant which is available all year round but highly toxic. When food was plentiful, gemsbok specialised exclusively on grasses and more ephemeral succulent species.In contrast, springboks fed on a higher proportion of shrubs and trees than grasses and succulent plants irrespective of environmental conditions. As the researchers expected, springbok opportunistically adjusted their diet in response to variation in food sources availabilities, preferring e.g. grass sprouts during the wet season and browsing predominantly on leaves of bushes when grass quality decreased during drought. Springbok therefore adopted a different dietary strategy than gemsbok when facing a shortage of food sources.The potential effects of the Damara milk-bush on gemsbok health are still unknown. …

Aug. 13, 2013 — When mice ate a diet of 25 percent extra sugar — the mouse equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of soda daily — females died at twice the normal rate and males were a quarter less likely to hold territory and reproduce, according to a toxicity test developed at the University of Utah.”Our results provide evidence that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health,” the researchers say in a study set for online publication Tuesday, Aug. 13 in the journal Nature Communications.”This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels,” says University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts, the study’s senior author. He says previous studies using other tests fed mice large doses of sugar disproportionate to the amount people consume in sweetened beverages, baked goods and candy.”I have reduced refined sugar intake and encouraged my family to do the same,” he adds, noting that the new test showed that the 25 percent “added-sugar” diet — 12.5 percent dextrose (the industrial name for glucose) and 12.5 percent fructose — was just as harmful to the health of mice as being the inbred offspring of first cousins.Even though the mice didn’t become obese and showed few metabolic symptoms, the sensitive test showed “they died more often and tended to have fewer babies,” says the study’s first author, James Ruff, who recently earned his Ph.D. at the University of Utah. “We have shown that levels of sugar that people typically consume — and that are considered safe by regulatory agencies — impair the health of mice.”The new toxicity test placed groups of mice in room-sized pens nicknamed “mouse barns” with multiple nest boxes — a much more realistic environment than small cages, allowing the mice to compete more naturally for mates and desirable territories, and thereby revealing subtle toxic effects on their performance, Potts says.”This is a sensitive test for health and vigor declines,” he says, noting that in a previous study, he used the same test to show how inbreeding hurt the health of mice.”One advantage of this assay is we get the same readout no matter if we are testing inbreeding or added sugar,” Potts says. “The mice tell us the level of health degradation is almost identical” from added-sugar and from cousin-level inbreeding.The study says the need for a sensitive toxicity test exists not only for components of our diet, but “is particularly strong for both pharmaceutical science, where 73 percent of drugs that pass preclinical trials fail due to safety concerns, and for toxicology, where shockingly few compounds receive critical or long-term toxicity testing.”The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.A Mouse Diet Equal to What a Quarter of Americans EatThe experimental diet in the study provided 25 percent of calories from added sugar — half fructose and half glucose — no matter how many calories the mice ate. Both high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar (sucrose) are half fructose and half glucose.Potts says the National Research Council recommends that for people, no more than 25 percent of calories should be from “added sugar,” which means “they don’t count what’s naturally in an apple, banana, potato or other nonprocessed food. … The dose we selected is consumed by 13 percent to 25 percent of Americans.”The diet fed to the mice with the 25 percent sugar-added diet is equivalent to the diet of a person who drinks three cans daily of sweetened soda pop “plus a perfectly healthy, no-sugar-added diet,” Potts says.Ruff notes that sugar consumption in the American diet has increased 50 percent since the 1970s, accompanied by a dramatic increase in metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, fatty liver and cardiovascular disease.The researchers used a mouse supply company that makes specialized diets for research. Chow for the mice was a highly nutritious wheat-corn-soybean mix with vitamins and minerals. …

Aug. 13, 2013 — When mice ate a diet of 25 percent extra sugar — the mouse equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of soda daily — females died at twice the normal rate and males were a quarter less likely to hold territory and reproduce, according to a toxicity test developed at the University of Utah.”Our results provide evidence that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health,” the researchers say in a study set for online publication Tuesday, Aug. 13 in the journal Nature Communications.”This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels,” says University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts, the study’s senior author. He says previous studies using other tests fed mice large doses of sugar disproportionate to the amount people consume in sweetened beverages, baked goods and candy.”I have reduced refined sugar intake and encouraged my family to do the same,” he adds, noting that the new test showed that the 25 percent “added-sugar” diet — 12.5 percent dextrose (the industrial name for glucose) and 12.5 percent fructose — was just as harmful to the health of mice as being the inbred offspring of first cousins.Even though the mice didn’t become obese and showed few metabolic symptoms, the sensitive test showed “they died more often and tended to have fewer babies,” says the study’s first author, James Ruff, who recently earned his Ph.D. at the University of Utah. “We have shown that levels of sugar that people typically consume — and that are considered safe by regulatory agencies — impair the health of mice.”The new toxicity test placed groups of mice in room-sized pens nicknamed “mouse barns” with multiple nest boxes — a much more realistic environment than small cages, allowing the mice to compete more naturally for mates and desirable territories, and thereby revealing subtle toxic effects on their performance, Potts says.”This is a sensitive test for health and vigor declines,” he says, noting that in a previous study, he used the same test to show how inbreeding hurt the health of mice.”One advantage of this assay is we get the same readout no matter if we are testing inbreeding or added sugar,” Potts says. “The mice tell us the level of health degradation is almost identical” from added-sugar and from cousin-level inbreeding.The study says the need for a sensitive toxicity test exists not only for components of our diet, but “is particularly strong for both pharmaceutical science, where 73 percent of drugs that pass preclinical trials fail due to safety concerns, and for toxicology, where shockingly few compounds receive critical or long-term toxicity testing.”The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.A Mouse Diet Equal to What a Quarter of Americans EatThe experimental diet in the study provided 25 percent of calories from added sugar — half fructose and half glucose — no matter how many calories the mice ate. Both high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar (sucrose) are half fructose and half glucose.Potts says the National Research Council recommends that for people, no more than 25 percent of calories should be from “added sugar,” which means “they don’t count what’s naturally in an apple, banana, potato or other nonprocessed food. … The dose we selected is consumed by 13 percent to 25 percent of Americans.”The diet fed to the mice with the 25 percent sugar-added diet is equivalent to the diet of a person who drinks three cans daily of sweetened soda pop “plus a perfectly healthy, no-sugar-added diet,” Potts says.Ruff notes that sugar consumption in the American diet has increased 50 percent since the 1970s, accompanied by a dramatic increase in metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, fatty liver and cardiovascular disease.The researchers used a mouse supply company that makes specialized diets for research. Chow for the mice was a highly nutritious wheat-corn-soybean mix with vitamins and minerals. …

Aug. 1, 2013 — Omega-3 fatty acids, contained in oily fish such as salmon and trout, selectively inhibit growth and induce cell death in early and late-stage oral and skin cancers, according to new research from scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.In vitro tests showed omega-3 fatty acids induced cell death in malignant and pre-malignant cells at doses which did not affect normal cells, suggesting they have the potential to be used in both the treatment and prevention of certain skin and oral cancers. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids cannot be made by humans in large quantities and so we must acquire them from our diet.The scientists were studying a particular type of cancer called squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC). Squamous cells are the main part of the outermost layers of the skin, and SCC is one of the major forms of skin cancer. However, squamous cells also occur in the lining of the digestive tract, lungs, and other areas of the body. Oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) are the sixth most common cancer worldwide and are difficult and very expensive to treat.In the experiments, the scientists grew cell cultures in the lab from several different cells lines to which they added fatty acids. The cell lines included both malignant oral and skin SCCs, along with pre-malignant cells and normal skin and oral cells. Professor Kenneth Parkinson, Head of the Oral Cancer Research Group at Queen Mary’s Institute of Dentistry, said: “We found that the omega-3 fatty acid selectively inhibited the growth of the malignant and pre-malignant cells at doses which did not affect the normal cells.”Surprisingly, we discovered this was partly due to an over-stimulation of a key growth factor (epidermal growth factor) which triggered cell death. This is a novel mechanism of action of these fatty acids.”While previous research has linked omega-3 fatty acids with the prevention of a number of cancers, there has been very little work done on oral cancers or normal cells.Dr Zacharoula Nikolakopoulou, carried out the research while studying her PhD at Queen Mary, under the supervision of Professor Parkinson and Professor Adina Michael-Titus, who is co-ordinating a programme of work on the protection of the nervous system with omega-3 fatty acids, in the Centre for Neuroscience and Trauma at Queen Mary’s Blizard Institute.Dr Nikolakopoulou said: “As the doses needed to kill the cancer cells do not affect normal cells, especially with one particular fatty acid we used called Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), there is potential for using omega-3 fatty acids in the prevention and treatment of skin and oral cancers.”It may be that those at an increased risk of such cancers — or their recurrence — could benefit from increased omega-3 fatty acids. Moreover, as the skin and oral cancers are often easily accessible, there is the potential to deliver targeted doses locally via aerosols or gels. …

July 30, 2013 — Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, shows that eating a junk-food diet during pregnancy changes the development of the opioid signalling pathway in the baby’s brain and permanently alters the way this system operates after birth.Share This:Opioids are chemicals which are released when we eat foods that are high in fat and sugar, and that are responsible for causing the release of another ‘feel good’ chemical, dopamine. The researchers found that the gene encoding one of the key endogenous opioids, enkephalin, was expressed at a higher level in the offspring of mothers who had consumed a junk food diet than in the offspring of mothers who ate standard rat feed. This increase in enkephalin, together with previous work done by this research group which showed that an opioid receptor blocker was less effective at reducing fat and sugar intake in the pups of the junk-food fed mothers, provides evidence for the first time that the opioid signalling pathway is less sensitive in junk-food exposed offspring.Being less sensitive to opioids means that individuals whose mothers eat excessive quantities of junk-food during pregnancy and breastfeeding, would have to eat more junk foods get the same ‘feel good’ response, and this would make them more likely to over consume these high-fat, high-sugar foods. Jessica Gugusheff from the FoodPlus research centre at the University of Adelaide, the graduate student leading this research, says that “the results of this studywill eventually permit us to better inform pregnant women about the enduring effect their diet has on the development of their child’s lifelong food preferences and risk of negative metabolic outcomes.”Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:|Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above. Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats: APA MLA Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

July 29, 2013 — Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have created and confirmed the accuracy of a mathematical model that predicts how weight and body fat in children respond to adjustments in diet and physical activity. The results will appear online July 30 in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.While the model may help to set realistic expectations, it has not been tested in a controlled clinical trial to determine if it is an effective tool for weight management.The model evolved from one developed at the NIH in 2011 to predict weight change in adults. The model for children considers their unique physiology, including changes in body composition as they grow.”Creating an accurate model of energy balance in children was challenging, because they are still growing,” said Kevin Hall, Ph.D., a researcher at the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and the paper’s first author. “Our model, which takes growth into consideration, helps quantify realistic goals for weight management in children and adolescents.”The researchers analyzed data from children ages 5-18 years to create the model, and tested it by comparing predictions to actual changes in children as measured in clinical studies that were not used to build the model. The model accurately simulated observed changes in body composition, energy expenditure, and weight.Model simulations also suggest that obese children may be eating far more calories for each pound gained, compared to adults. For example, children under age 10 were predicted to require more than twice the calories per pound of extra weight than an adult would need to gain a pound. Additionally, the model suggests that there may be therapeutic windows of weight management when children can “outgrow” obesity without requiring weight loss, especially during periods of high growth potential in males who are not severely obese at the onset of treatment.More than one-third of children and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese. Excess weight in children can lead to lifelong health problems such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. As recommendations for managing weight may vary based on health and age, parents should work with a health professional before beginning any weight-loss regimen for their overweight or obese child.”Obese children are much more likely to become obese adults, which makes achieving or maintaining a healthy weight early in life vitally important,” said NIDDK Director Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D. …

July 29, 2013 — Diets lacking omega-3 fatty acids — found in foods like wild fish, some eggs, and grass-fed livestock — can have worsened effects over consecutive generations, especially affecting teens, according to a University of Pittsburgh study.Published in Biological Psychiatry, the Pitt team found that in a rodent model second-generation deficiencies of omega-3s caused elevated states of anxiety and hyperactivity in adolescents and affected the teens’ memory and cognition.”We have always assumed that stress at this age is the main environmental insult that contributes to developing these conditions in at-risk individuals but this study indicates that nutrition is a big factor, too,” said Bita Moghaddam, lead author of the paper and professor of neuroscience in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. “We found that this dietary deficiency can compromise the behavioral health of adolescents, not only because their diet is deficient but because their parents’ diet was deficient as well. This is of particular concern because adolescence is a very vulnerable time for developing psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and addiction.”Diets lacking omega-3 fatty acids — found in foods like wild fish, eggs, and grass-fed livestock — can have worsened effects over consecutive generations, especially affecting teens, according to a University of Pittsburgh study.Performing experiments in rats in Moghaddam’s laboratory, the research team examined a “second generation” of omega-3-deficient diets, mimicking present-day adolescents. Parents of many of today’s teens were born in the 1960s and 1970s, a time period in which omega-3-deficient oils like corn and soy oil became prevalent, and farm animals moved from eating grass to grain. Since omega-3s are present in grass and algae, much of today’s grain-fed cattle contain less of these essential fatty acids.The Pitt team administered a set of behavioral tasks to study the learning and memory, decision making, anxiety, and hyperactivity of both adults and adolescents. Although subjects appeared to be in general good physical health, there were behavioral deficiencies in adolescents that were more pronounced in second-generation subjects with omega-3 deficiencies. Overall, these adolescents were more anxious and hyperactive, learned at a slower rate, and had impaired problem-solving abilities.”Our study shows that, while the omega-3 deficiency influences the behavior of both adults and adolescents, the nature of this influence is different between the age groups,” said Moghaddam. “We observed changes in areas of the brain responsible for decision making and habit formation.”The team is now exploring epigenetics as a potential cause. This is a process in which environmental events influence genetic information. …

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